Playing with some new ideas. I think I might do more of these. They’re kind of like my abstract Layers pieces but inside out. I think I might attempt some where the background has more complexity.
Anyway, they’re kind of cool. I still have a lot of growing and experimenting to do when it comes to using gold, but I’ve come a long way. And today while making these, especially the red one, I remembered this trip to San Diego almost a decade ago. I was there for a convention I definitely had no interest in. I think it was an International Relations conference. I’d brought my new dress from Barney’s with the complex gold zipper down its back, though the dress belonged at the conference about as much as I did.
My friends and I were staying in a hotel downtown. It was a nice hotel, lovely in fact. There were some large abstract paintings in the lobby, red and gold. I had started painting again back then. I remember looking at them, unable to figure them out. How had the artist gotten that effect? It seemed like such uncharted territory, such a great mystery, something I was hoping to one day figure out, yet was unsure I ever would. I don’t really remember those paintings now, but I know if I looked at them today I probably would be much closer to understanding the process. And sometimes I need to remind myself that that alone is a great achievement.
